there was no up
there was no down
there was no side to side

there was no light
there was no dark
nor shape of any kind

there were no stars or planet Mars
or protons to collide
there was no up 
there was no down
there was no side to side

and furthermore to underscore this total lacking state
there was no here
there was no there
because there was no space

and in this endless void which can't be thought of as a place
there was no time
and so no passing minutes, hours, days

of all the paradoxes
that belabor common sense
I think this one's the greatest
this time before events

because how did we go from nothing
to infinitely dense?
from immeasurably small
to inconceivably immense?

but before we get unmoored from the question at the start
let's take a breath and marvel
at when math becomes an art

because we don't have to understand it
to know there was a time
when there was no up
there was no down
there was no side to side

Reina del Cid

In a star system far away the governments of various species have a treaty that keeps them from killing each other. As part of that treaty, an individual, no matter their genetics, may declare itself a member of a species and that declaration has to be respected. They can also declare gender but that's not as important. Leckie's novel explores a conflict when two beings, one apparently human but genetically not, and one totally not human and given to eating people both declare themselves to be human. Kind of fun and obviously related to our current freak out about genders. Also in Leckie's universe, the good systems have coffee and all species drink a lot of it.

Niece Britten joined the video call from an airport in Napa and I had the occasion to tell this story. Early eighties, no cellphones, in a Norfolk airport, I miss my connection to Boston, take a later flight. In Boston, there is only one flight left to Maine and it's Bar Harbor Air to Owl's Head. I get on it. The pilot radioes to Waterville where Melissa is expecting to pick me up. He makes sure she knows how to get to Owl's Head. We land at Owl's Head, the airport guy turns off the lights and shuts down the airport and gives me a ride to a 24 hour Dunkin in Rockland where Melissa meets me. I don't know the year, but I know the month was July because my carry-on was a gym bag full of fresh figs. With memories, I remember the facts but not any emotions that went with the experience. I do remember a thought/feeling with this memory; if I could just get to Maine everything would be ok. Maine was a safe place where people could figure things out and be helpful. Nobody flies into Waterville now, and there are no 24 hour Dunkins on the coast.

What was that thing Alinsky said about doing the right thing for the wrong reasons? I love me a good coalition, and an interesting coalition is forming to oppose the state's intent to run a huge transmission line right through western Waldo County, right through organic farms and homesteads, creating a 150 foot swath maintained with herbicides and pesticides. It would connect a proposed wind farm in Aroostook County with southern Maine and Massachusetts. It will be hugely profitable to sell cheap wind energy to Mass. And we need wind energy as part of the mix of solar and wind and hydro that will let us go green. Groups oppose it for different reasons. The repubs oppose it because they don't believe in climate change or the need for green energy. The land owners are about ownership rights. The environmentalists think trashing organic farmland and aquifers is not the way to do green energy. I don't think a local ordinance would prevent the state from using eminent domain, but a transmission line ordinance could include some things that let land owners choose (1)that the state can't just pay for an easement but must actually buy the whole property at a percentage above market value; (2)the line has to go underground through their property; (3)no use of pesticides or herbicides. I know that we will need transmission lines to go all electric on power, but their has to be a better way.